ER&L Tracks

The Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference tracks are updated by our Program Planning Committee. The 2019 program will span these tracks and subtopics and related areas of interest to our community.

1. Managing e-Resources & Licensing

Managing electronic resources is a challenge, whether you’re new to it or have been engaged in the endeavor for years. Which systems and tools can be used to manage electronic resources more effectively? How are we successfully handling new content formats? What can we achieve through more thoughtful licensing? How can standards and best practices assist our efforts?

2. Collection Development & Assessment

How do we demonstrate value to our larger organizations? Are our collection analysis processes efficient and effective enough? How can collecting and using data be easier? How can we best assess our online collections?

Employing new business models for targeted collection growth

Extracting and analyzing electronic resource data

Creating value for the customer

Using analytics/data mining

Calculating ROI and showing value to funding bodies

Deselection and its impact on e-resources collections strategies

Incorporating free resources into library collections

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3. Organizational Strategies

Our organizations regularly evolve due to changes in leadership and strategic vision, budget constraints, user needs, and the simple fact that so many of our resources are now online. All of this impacts the way we manage e-resources. What type of leadership has helped create positive change? What are some examples of beneficial organizational shift and improved communication? Where are there opportunities for internal collaboration? Where do we still need to improve the way we work?

4. External Relationships

In the digital world, libraries don’t stand alone. They work closely with consortia, vendors, other libraries, and intermediaries. How are these relationships working? Are we getting the most out of our partnerships with other organizations or groups? How can we improve our external relationships?

Relationships/issues between librarians, vendors, publishers

Working with subscription agents, knowledge base providers, and other intermediaries

Working with faculty, departments, and community groups

Consortial relationships

Collaborative relationships in e-resource delivery

5. User Experience & Promotion

Libraries exist in large part to support our users. How can we better serve our user populations? What kinds of communications will help us reach them when so much is competing for their attention? What tools, activities, or methods can help libraries better track user needs? How can we demonstrate to users the value of libraries and create a better user experience? How do we integrate library content and services into online spaces users already inhabit?

Marketing/promoting e-resources to your users

User experience

Discovery systems and applications

Accessibility

Serendipity

Student/patron advisory boards

6. Scholarly Communication & Library Publishing

How do we deal with new models of scholarship that are emerging? How do we accommodate new forms of content? What can we do to facilitate knowledge sharing and access? What role can the library play in the creation and distribution of the products of scholarship and creativity?

Role of libraries supporting scholarly communication

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Digital rights management and copyright

Open access publications and data

Open educational resources (OERs)

Institutional and disciplinary repositories

Data curation

Locally digitized materials

Library-university press partnerships

Teaching patrons about self-publishing options

Rights metadata

7. Emerging Technologies & Trends

So much of what we do in libraries today is driven by technology, and many of the problems we face can be addressed by employing, customizing, or developing technologies. How are current technologies being used? What emerging technologies are on the horizon? How we can we employ them effectively to meet the information needs of the library, internally and externally?

Reaching users in the digital environment

Latest technology tools and ideas being used in libraries

Use of open-source software in libraries

Offering library services online

Evaluation and assessment of technologies

Libraries & online learning applications

Linked data projects

Librarian-as-coder work

Role of e-resources librarian in digital humanities and data services

What big data means for libraries

Patron privacy

8. Data Science in Libraries

Data science is the process of gaining insight from data to inform decision making. In libraries, there are a wide gamut of ‘data savvy’ roles that orbit within and around the world of data science. From the metadata librarians automating curation workflows to the collection managers gaining insights into their collections, to the subject librarians working closely with researchers, the roles in libraries exist more or less on a data-savvy spectrum to solve internal challenges and to improve services. How has your library made sense of complex datasets to make better decisions? How have data science skills within the library improved services with user communities? What unique partnerships formed around teaching or using data science on campus? What are the unique roles libraries can have in data science and management?

Data visualization to improve decision-making or to tell a story

Text and data mining

Networks and linked data

Data science training and best practices

Data management, analysis, and digital curation

Data storage and access

Open science and digital humanities

Documentation and Metadata

Data ethics considerations

Research workflows and automation

Research computing and reproducibility

ER&L 101

These sessions span all of the tracks, introducing an attendee to a foundational area of librarianship (such as licensing, ebook management, troubleshooting) or an emerging but important topic starting at an introductory level. These courses would not require background knowledge of the topic and would be appropriate for a practitioner new to eresources or as an introduction to a new topic.